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Hallie had tried to tell him. She’d tried to save him from his own darkness.
“So you just let me destroy you,” Cristiano said slowly. “You let me take everything from you, and make it mine.”
“Of course I did,” Luigi said quietly. “You’re my son. Your happiness means more to me than my own. I love you.”
Cristiano heard the echo of Hallie’s voice.
Love makes a family. Love makes a home.
“My mother said you abandoned us,” he said. “After she died, I wanted to make you suffer.”
“It’s not your fault, my son,” Luigi said hoarsely. “I should have taken you into my arms the day you walked into my hotel. I should have—”
With a sob, Luigi pulled him into his arms.
For a moment, Cristiano stiffened.
“So much time has been lost,” Luigi whispered, hugging him. “Because I was afraid. Because I was ashamed. Years we can never get back. Oh, my son. Can you forgive me?”
So much time has been lost.
Still held in his father’s arms, Cristiano thought of the ten days he’d been separated from his wife and child. Ten days had felt like eternity, driving him half-mad.
What if they were separated for a lifetime? Until he, too, was apologizing for his cowardice and shame?
He gasped, and suddenly realized he was hugging his father back. Hearing Luigi’s sobs of joy, Cristiano’s heart cracked in his chest.
Emotions suddenly poured through him. Grief and anguish and every other feeling he’d blocked for years. Everything he hadn’t let himself feel.
And love.
Love so big it seemed to be exploding out of his body with light brighter than the sun.
As he stood in a little village on the edge of the Amalfi Coast, hugged by his father for the very first time, Cristiano took a deep breath. Even the air seemed different in his lungs.
“Thank you for that,” Luigi said, finally releasing him. He wiped his eyes. “You’ve made an old man so happy.”
As Cristiano stared down at his father, everything became crystal clear.
Hallie.
Oh, God, how could he not have realized it before?
She was the one who’d tried to convince him to forgive his father. She’d loved Cristiano, even when he didn’t deserve it. She’d seen the hurt and darkness inside him, and, instead of scorning him, she’d tried to heal it. She’d been brave enough to love him, flawed as he was.
He’d tossed it back in her face.
His spine snapped straight as he looked across the sea and realized, for the first time, exactly what love meant. What family meant.
Love didn’t consume, like fire.
It gave, like the sun.
Cristiano took a deep breath and felt his shoulders expand as he sucked all the world into his lungs. His eyes narrowed in a private vow.
If she forgave him, he would show her that her faith in him hadn’t been wrong.
He would give his wife, every single day on earth, a reason to sing.
